Page 73 of The Lie Maker

I had happened to glance back during the minister’s boilerplate remarks—Mom hadn’t attended this church, and the minister performing the service wouldn’t have known her from Judi Dench if she, as Mom herself would have been inclined to say, stood up naked in his soup—and saw a man I thought I recognized standing just inside the door.

Although he looked different from the last time I had seen him, I knew it was Dad.

He had a short, neatly trimmed gray beard, and had lost some weight. He was wearing a fedora-style hat, which hardly anyone wore anymore, but which I figured he had put on to make himself harder to identify.

For a millisecond, our eyes met.

I turned to look back at the minister, droning on, and briefly considered how scandalous it would be for me to get up in the middle of the service, and concluded I didn’t give a shit. People would assume I’d been overcome with emotion, excuse my behavior. I was on my feet, heading for the aisle on the far right of the church, but the man with the hat was gone. By the time I was out the front doors, he was nowhere to be seen.

When I was twenty-one, I was attending Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, across the border in New York State, majoring in English with a minor in theater. At least, those were the subjects that occupied my time when I wasn’t getting drunk or trying to get laid.

A friend called out to me as I was passing through the common area of the dormitory complex where I lived. “Your dad’s here,” he said. “Up in your room.”

At first I thought, Earl’s come to visit. My coming to Skidmore had marked the end of our living under the same roof. He was selling the house he and Mom shared—he needed the money—and it was more or less understood that when school was over I’d have to find my own place to live. But he had tried to make up for that by taking on the duties a real father would, like driving me up here, and coming to get me at the end of the semester.

But this was the middle of the term, so it didn’t make much sense that it would be Earl.

Sure enough, when I got to my room, it was Dad sitting there on my bed. I was slightly taken aback by his appearance. He looked thinner than when I’d caught that glimpse of him at the funeral. He’d made no attempt to disguise himself, maybe because he looked different. His skin looked gray, his eyes sunk into his forehead.

“Hey,” I said.

He stood. “Jack,” he said, pulling me into his arms. “It’s good to see you.”

“I saw you,” I said. I didn’t have to tell him when.

“Yeah,” he said. “When you spotted me I had to take off. Would have been okay if it’d just been you, but other people might have noticed. But... I felt I had to pay my respects.”

I nodded.

“And today, well,” he said, sitting back down on the bed, “I wanted to see you while I still had the chance.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

He put a hand to his chest. “Going in for surgery next week. They’ve spotted a little something on my lung. They’re hoping they can get the spot without taking the whole thing. But you never know. Doctors, right?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I hope it goes okay.”

“Fingers crossed,” he said. “I don’t mean to be all maudlin, coming here, like it’s the end. I’m sure it’ll go okay.” He paused, forced a smile. “How’s Earl these days?”

“Pulling back.”

“I gather he’s kind of a fuck-up.”

“He means well, I guess. But yeah.” I shrugged. “He sold the house, has basically kicked me out. But he has his moments when he tries.”

Dad nodded. “Well, I’m not exactly in a position to judge.”

“Have you got anyone else?” I asked. “I mean, to get you through this?”

He shook his head. “No, but that’s okay.”

Through our infrequent visits I had learned that Dad had never settled down with anyone else, at least not for long, and if he’d fathered any more kids, he’d never mentioned it. Maybe he had and didn’t want me to know.

Stuck for something to ask him, the best I could come up with was, “Still wearing the orange apron?”

He shook his head. “No. Left that job years ago. Exposed to too many people. Someone might still recognize me after all this time. Kind of bouncing around. I’ve been getting some work at a window factory, picking up a few hours at a printer’s.”

“You know,” I said, “I hear you in my sleep. The conversations we had before you left. Like I’m trying to cling to that time when you were with us.”